1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus such as a copier, a printer, a scanner, a facsimile machine, or a so-called composite machine which has all or some of the functions of these devices, and, in particular, to an image processing apparatus in which an external application which is newly provided is stored in a storage device, and the external application is started from the storage device.
In recent years, an image processing apparatus which performs functions, of respective devices, such as a printer, a copier, a facsimile machine, and a scanner, within a single housing, so-called a composite machine is known. This composite machine operates as respective devices such as a printer, a copier, a scanner, or a facsimile machine with a provision of three types of software corresponding to the printer, a copier, and a facsimile machine, and executes such software in turn appropriately in use of various hardware resources such as a display part, a printing part, an image pick-up part, etc. within the same housing.
Such a composite machine may have, so-called a large-capacity storage device, such as a hard disk drive (HDD). Such a large-capacity storage device provided in such a composite machine is used mainly for the purpose of storing image data, but may not be used for the purpose of storing software programs or application programs which are executed therefrom as in a general purpose computer such as a personal computer. This is because such a type of large-capacity storage device (HDD or so) has not necessarily a sufficient reliability or may be likely to have a trouble as compared with other storage devices. Accordingly, such a type of large-capacity storage device may not be suitable as a storage device for the purpose of storing firmware or so in a so-called inclusion machine such as a composite machine, a copier or so in which a mechanical device including a moving part such as a printing device, a scanning device or so, which may cause a vibration, a heat or so, is provided together with computer parts such as a CPU, a storage device and so forth, which computer parts, in general, should be protected from the vibration, heat or so.
In fact, in case a large-capacity storage device has a trouble due to the above-mentioned vibration, heat or so, this trouble may not be removed by a user in general, and, thus, a repair work should be made by a special staff such as a customer engineer of a manufacturer or so for each time of trouble occurrence. As a result, the operation costs increase accordingly, and thus, the user's impression on the machine itself may become worse.
For the purpose of avoiding such a situation, according to the conventional art, such a large-capacity storage device is not used for storing application programs, but such firmware is written into an internal memory (ROM: Read Only Memory or so) before the shipment of the machine.